Sowams Heritage Area Coordinator Dr. David Weed gave a presentation on “Pokanokets & Pilgrims: Compromise & Conflict in the 17th Century” to an audience of forty people at the George Hail Library in Warren, RI on February 21, 2020. Dr. Weed contrasted the two cultures who were vastly different from one another but who managed to maintain peaceful and mutually supportive relationships for over half a century following the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620. Following the death of the Massasoit Ousamequin in 1661, relationships between the two groups deteriorated. Finally, in the spring of 1675, the English tried three Pokanoket men suspected of murdering Praying Indian John Sassamon, violating the terms of the 1621 treaty and leading to the outbreak of the King Philip War in what is now Warren. Dr. Weed ended the presentation by reading the Prayer of the Sagamore, William “Winds of Thunder” Guy who lives in Barrington and leads over 300 Pokanoket people who continue to live in the area despite attempts to extinguish their culture over the past 350 years. Click here for a 101-minute video of the presentation.